l82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



delight of the squire, who had " scored," and who care- 

 fully put the Ferruni into his pocket, to be used as a rod 

 of iron in future controversy, if needed, whenever the 

 Canon seemed verging on to a state of cocksureness ! 



I have said that they each had a real regard for the 

 other — but subject to the right of search, and to unhmited 

 banter, if occasion offered. 



" My cousin, Sam Lysons, is a very good fellow, you 

 know, but he's always wild when he gets on to Anti- 

 quarian subjects : he's as mad as a March hare about the 

 Ancient Britons. Then there's the Iron Well at Matson. 

 Lysons will have it that the Monks worked iron on 

 Robins' Wood Hill. He brought me a deed, you know, 

 that he said gave them the privilege : and then he pointed 

 to a word that he said was Ferruni. I got my big glass 



to bear upon it this glass : I aUvays carry it to make out old deeds and coins. 



Well, when I came to look, it wasn't Ferrtini at all. It 

 was Focnum. That's just like Sam Lysons : he's a very 

 good fellow you know, but you can't trust him a bit in 

 such matters." 



— "John Niblett has a wonderful fund of knowledge, if 

 you can only get at it," said his old friend one day : " He's 

 a capital well, but with no pump to it."* 



And then changing the metaphor, the Canon added — 

 " Niblett always puts me in mind of a schoolboy that you 

 want to borrow a pencil from. He dives his hand into 

 his pockets and pulls out a heap of all sorts of things. 

 First he picks out a button : then a bit of string : and 

 then a peg-top. He tells you all the history of the top : 

 where he got it : how many other tops he has split with 



* " I once liad to give a lecture, and before it began, a^Ued me a lot of 



questions about it, till lie had got it all otF l)y heart. Then he got up to introduce 

 me to the audience, and made a long speech, in which he said everything I had pre- 

 pared down to the very details — so that when it came to my turn I really h.adn't a 

 mortal thing left to talk about, for he had pumped me completely dry you know ! " 



